City Names Glassell Park Fast-Food Corner 'Fletcher Square'

If you drive Fletcher Boulevard across the L.A. River through Atwater Village any time soon, you'll notice someting new, just a few blocks east of the LAPD Northeast Community Police Station in Glassell Park.

A few feet from the traffic light on the crossing’s southwest corner—and a stone’s throw from the historic site of the former Van de Kamps bakery that local activists want to turn into a community college serving the needs of youth across Northeast L.A.—is a new sign that has prompted a fair bit of ridicule from readers of the Eastsider LA blog, which first reported the development last week.

Installed by the City of Los Angeles, the sign reads: “Fletcher Square, Dedicated July 21, 2012.”

As the photos above testify, the only square on the frequently congested crossing is the shape of the sign itself, which, in turn, is dwarfed by the sign for the Glendale (2) freeway nearby. There’s no spot to sit and eat a sandwich or read a book, even though there are plenty of fast food stores in the vicinity whose patrons might have benefited from an actual square nearby.

The idea behind Fletcher Square is to “build a sense of identity and generate neighborhood pride,” writes the Eastsider, adding that the name “Fletcher Square” has no roots in the neighborhood’s history.

Reportedly the brainchild of Council member Eric Garcetti, in whose CD 13 jurisdiction the area lies, the name “came into being during the last decade when a set of design and planning guidelines—dubbed the Fletcher Square Community Design Overlay Zone—was adopted,” according to the Eastsider.

As you'd probably expect, the name already has an abbreviation—and a catchy one at that: FSQ.